Intentions to Marry, 1897 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840411, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 25 2025

1897 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 486

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 June 1897

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
207	15 April 1897	Edwin Noel Hoofte Rachel Mary Berry	Edwin Noel Hoyte Rachel Mary Berry 💍 1897/4873	Bachelor Spinster	Chemist	32 38	Auckland Greymouth	10 years 4 years	Epiphany Church, Newton	97/1192		15 April 1897	Rev. W. E. Lush, Church of England
208	20 April 1897	Thomas Shigh Bakewell Amy Florence Foulstone	Thomas Hugh Frescheville Bakewell Amy Florence Goulstone 💍 1897/4872	Widower Spinster	Clerk	33 31	Helensville Auckland	5 years 14 years	House of M. Foulstone, Park Road	97/1191		20 April 1897	Rev. H. H. Lawry, Wesleyan
209	20 April 1897	William Patrick Dowling Lily Reinhardt	William Patrick Dowling Lily Reinhardt 💍 1897/1088	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	24 19	Kawa Kawa Auckland	4 years 4 months	St. Benedict's Church	97/1925	Charles Reinhardt, father	20 April 1897	Rev. B. O. Gallagher, Roman Catholic
210	20 April 1897	Thomas William Edlington Margaret Ellen Blackwell	Thomas William Edlington Margaret Ellen Blackwell 💍 1897/4856	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	35 39	Auckland Auckland	20 years 39 years	House of M. Carroll, Hobson Street	97/1198		20 April 1897	Rev. W. A. Sinclair, Wesleyan Methodist
211	20 April 1897	John Richard Jones Margaret Amelia Jones	John Richard Jones Margaret Amelia Jones 💍 1897/4864	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	28 37	Cabbage Bay Auckland	1 year 2 weeks	House of M. Dickie, Wellesley Street	97/1207		20 April 1897	Rev. W. G. Thomas, Wesleyan
212	20 April 1897	William Roderick Beanclere Bagge Edith Lilian Von Sturmer	William Roderick Branchie Bagge Edith Lilian Von Sturmer 💍 1897/4696	Bachelor Spinster	Architect	25 23	Wellington Auckland	5 years 7 years	Bishop's Court, Parnell	97/1216		20 April 1897	Rev. G. McMurray, Church of England

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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What is an Intention to Marry?

The 1854 Marriage Act required Pakeha settlers (and later Maori) to register their intention to marry from 1855. The resulting Notices of intention to marry were sent by the district registrars to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages and bound into large volumes, each containing a year of notices. These registers were eventually deposited with Archives New Zealand.

What information does an ItM record?

A typical Intention to Marry notice records:

the bride and groom's full names
occupation of the groom (and sometimes the bride)
their ages
district where the marriage would take place
how long they had resided in the district
Where the marriage would take place (eg, a specific church)
Who would officiate the marriage (eg, a minister)
The date of the notice and also a date when the certificate was issued. Marriages had to take place within 3 months, and usually occurred within a week or so of the certificate date.
If one of the parties was under 21, a parent who consented to their marriage was usually specified

These details can provide clues for genealogical and historical research. Knowing the date and district makes it easier to look for wedding notices in Papers Past, and the amount of time that the parties had resided in a district can offer clues to whether a person was born in NZ, or when they immigrated.

However, finding individual records in the Intentions to Marry registers was typically a slow and manual process, usually requiring an in-person visit to Archives NZ's Wellington office (during limited opening hours) and using a handwritten card catalogue index to look up individual names.

Eight years of the registers had been digitised by Archives NZ prior to 2024, but even these digital versions required the use of a manual index and usually examining several pages to locate specific records.

What is the Intentions to Marry Project?

This project aims to transcribe the New Zealand Intentions to Marry registers (from 1855 to 1925) with the assistance of new technology (AI), making the records freely available and easily searchable.

The ITM records have also been cross-referenced with the registered marriages at DIA Births, Deaths and Marriages, where possible (a small fraction of the recorded intentions to marry did not become a registered marriage).

Currently we have almost all records between 1855 and 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

The project is led by Luke Howison, a web developer who made the free genealogical research search tool NZ Ancestor Search Helper and Archway-style Collections Search. There are also some wonderful volunteers assisting with digitising the registers.

Can I volunteer to help?

Yes, you can! You can sign up to correct errors in the transcribed records and match ITMs with registered marriages.

I am also looking for Wellington-based volunteers to help me digitise more years of the registers. I can provide lighting equipment and a 'clicker' (to trigger your phone's camera).

How is the transcription done?

There are several steps to digitising and transcribing the records:

Digitising the registers (taking clean, straight, high-quality photos)
Processing the digitised pages by straightening, cropping and sharpening the images
Transcribing each page with a combination of AI tools
Matching each ITM with a registered marriage when possible
Human verification of the transcribed information

The main LLM (AI) used are the Google Gemini Pro and Flash models, which have excellent 'Vision' capabilities, and a generous free tier.

Archives NZ has released the register years they have digitised (1865-69, 1872, 1874 and 1880) under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

The Intention to Marry registers (up to 1925) are more than 100 years old, so their Crown Copyright has expired, putting them in the public domain. This also applies to any 'mechanical reproductions' (eg, pictures or photocopies) of their content without substantial alteration.

The transcribed records on this website are released under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license, which allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes, while giving credit to the creator (NZ Intentions to Marry Project).